Do the Hollywood Film Awards
matter? Ask publicists and film marketers eager to lap up any and all
opportunities to position movies and talent this time of year, then
yeah, they do. Have they long been a ham-fisted attempt to capitalize on
awards season and a scheme to line one ambitious individual's pockets?
Ask the same group and you'll get another affirmative. "I don't want to
deal with this, but I guess I have to," one deflated publicist told me
of the upcoming show, which will be broadcast for the first time ever on
CBS Friday.

When Ben Affleck dutifully takes the stage to accept the organization's best film prize for David Fincher's "Gone Girl"
(which is the current plan according to multiple sources), for the
modest audience that bothers to watch on a Friday night, it will look
like a timely shot of adrenaline for a box office success on the bubble
for Best Picture Oscar consideration. When the cast of "Foxcatcher" is
honored, when Benedict Cumberbatch and Julianne Moore
receive the first of many trophies this year, when "Guardians of the
Galaxy" and "Top Five" get commercial-leaning awards, when Michael Keaton
is feted for lifetime achievement, when "Wild" director Jean-Marc
Vallée accepts a breakthrough filmmaker prize a full year after truly
"breaking through" with "Dallas Buyers Club" — it will appear to some
viewers like a commencement of the season.

To those in the industry, however, those feeling arm-barred into
$25,000 price tags for tables at the event, who have been put off by the
"if you don't give us this then we're going to take away that" bullying
of the negotiated prizes, who know the best director honor was still up
in the air as late as last week with the event's leadership scrounging
for Angelina Jolie, Richard Linklater, Christopher Nolan, Ridley Scott,
any "name" to show up and gladly accept (some significant players have
perhaps smartly declined representation at the show) — it will simply
feel like wasted energy.
But awards season is a monument to wasted energy. So why not one more huckster with wares to peddle?

I don't know Carlos de Abreu well — the mastermind behind all of this
largess, pictured above — but his reputation has always preceded him.
He has smartly leveraged his enterprise over the years, loading up his
Rolodex since arriving in Hollywood in the 1970s, initially affixing his
kudos showcase to the Hollywood Film Festival, finding media cohorts
who would eventually secure trade pulpits from which he could broaden
his profile, etc. When Dick Clark Productions was looking to hedge bets
in the wake of the NBC/Golden Globes dispute, he unloaded. And seriously, good for him. But observationally, I think it's a little sleazy that he's going after the finances of a competitor*;
it's thinly veiled and everyone sort of gets it. I think it's a shame
that a show meant to kinda/sorta recognize the best of the year happens
at such an early date, before a number of films have been seen, let
alone released (they used to be even earlier). And I think it's a real
bummer, if not an outright disaster, that the event now has a broadcast
outlet on a major network, because in an industry where perception often
means more than reality, the cachet of the whole thing takes on a new,
unfortunate hue.

You could knock the notion of negotiated awards if it weren't such a
constant; they happen elsewhere during the season and it's sort of just a
course of business this time of year. Still, the manner in which the
Hollywood Film Awards have long operated, leveraging below-the-line
honors as a tactic to get famous people to show up and present
(not-so-shocker: those have now been kicked to commercial bumpers for
the televised show, and have already been announced, because who has the
time?**), making an often gross time of year even grosser — it hasn't
always sat well with those involved. But they still play ball. They
still humor the horse trading. As Anne Thompson put it when she bothered to write about all of this five years ago, they (and the media) still give it a pass.

So here they come. And the question remains: Do they matter? For
"Gone Girl," which will also pick up prizes for screenplay and sound, I
guess we'll see. For other winners that serve more as obvious Oscar
prognostication than anything else, the answer will be more nebulous.

But I imagine, like always, the Hollywood Film Awards will be more or
less just part of the clutter by the time we get to the meat of the
season. When watching the Golden Globes or Academy Awards nominations
announcement, casual viewers will think, "Yeah, I've been hearing about
Eddie Redmayne being an Oscar contender for a while" (he will be honored
for breakout work alongside Shailene Woodley Friday). But this event
simply remains one more voice in a sea of noise that won't have any
tangible bearing on anything. Ask Hilary Swank what a Hollywood Film
Award for "Amelia" did for her. Or Mike Medavoy for "All the King's
Men." Or Sam Rockwell for "Conviction." Or Jake Gyllenhall for
"Prisoners."

Long live the circuit, I guess…

The 18th annual Hollywood Film Awards will be presented this Friday, Nov. 14. We'll be sure to let you know what else "won."

(Note: The Contenders
section has been tweaked in recent weeks but we'll know a lot more
about the direction of this season in the coming days, so I'll save a
full-on update until mid-week.)
****Disclosure: I am a member of the Broadcast Film Critics
Association, a group not without its own issues, of which I have
certainly been critical in the past.**Case in point, when the BFCA began presenting below-the-line
awards, they, too, were relegated to commercial bumpers. Worse, none of
the talent at the show were aware said awards were being handled that way. A little embarrassing.

This Friday, we get a new awards show on TV. It’s the Hollywood
Awards, brainchild of former Hollywood Film Festival creator Carlos
Abreu. Last year she sold the festival and made a deal for the awards
with Dick Clark Productions. That company produces what you might call
the ‘lesser’ awards of the season– the Golden Globes, the American Music
Awards, the People’s Choice Awards. They aren’t exactly Oscars, Emmys
or Grammys, but they’re useful for bringing in ad money and movie stars
to the networks.

How many people decide who get the Hollywood Film Awards? Twelve. 12.
A dozen. Their names are kept secret but I am assured none of them come
from movie studios. Still, everyone knows everyone in the film world.
It’s hard to be objective, to say the least.

The Hollywood Awards, an insider tells me, are supposed to be along
the lines of the Kennedy Center Honors. They are really tributes. Nine
of the “below the line” tech awards have already been announced. All the
other honorees know who they are already. The audience is in the dark,
but the players are not.

The categories are as follows. You can sort of figure it out.
Angelina Jolie will get the director award. Breakout actor will be
O’Connell, star of her movie. Maybe Redmayne and Cumberbatch will tie
for Best Actor, Reese and Amy Adams will tie for Best Actress. Mike
Myers will get Doc award for “Supermensch.” It will just be a big party
on a Friday night, and why not? As a friend of mine says, it could be
worse.